


Reflections

by icarus_chained



Series: Natasha [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Betrayal, Courage, Friendship, Gen, Reconciliation, Spies & Secret Agents, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Pepper, and a small conversation in the wake of IM2. Betrayal, fear, and the courage it takes to live past it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> *rubs face* Something small and random that floated up. *spreads hands* I don't know. Set just after IM2, but written in light of Avengers.

Natasha stood by the window in the silent darkness of the office at SI. Resting her shoulder against the cool blankness of the glass, staring absently out at the glow of LA in the distance. Pervading the room, and turning the window a featureless black. 

She couldn't see her reflection. The lights were stronger on the other side of the glass. For some reason, the thought made her smile, a little. Not really a happy one. 

She had no real reason to be here. No real reason to have come back, when the job was done, and within four hours she'd be flying out. Some other job, some other mark. Some other name, some other life.

No. She'd had no reason to come back.

The door behind her opened. Carefully, warily. The woman on the other side, her reflection layered over the glimpse of Natasha's own that flared with the light from the hall, was cautious. Afraid. After the last few days, she had reason to be.

"... Natalie?" Pepper asked, softly. Stepping into the room, closing the door softly behind her.

"Natasha," Natasha answered. Why not? 

"... Of course." Pepper stopped, just behind her. A respectful, and slightly menacing, distance. Natasha felt a slightly realer smile creep up. "I'm sorry."

Natasha shook her head, letting the full smile spread, crooked and amused, as she turned sideways slightly, meeting Pepper's eyes while keeping her shoulder to the glass. Something to lean on. The lack of reflection. Always that.

"Not really," she said, quietly. Gently. Pepper blinked at her, frowning, a flash of temper under the cool facade. 

Natasha liked her. She really did.

"Not really," Pepper agreed, moving up beside Natasha. Looking out the window in her turn. Refusing eye contact. Petulance, maybe. Or steel. "So," she said lightly. "You're a spy."

"Among other things."

Natasha watched the small flinch, at that. The ripple across the other woman's smooth facade. Pepper turned to look at her, jerked her head to meet Natasha's eyes, and oh, there was pain there. Betrayal. Honest hurt. Not fear. Not quite what Natasha had seen in Stark's eyes, when he knew. There were things Stark knew that this woman didn't, fears he'd lived through that she hadn't. But the hurt. That was the same.

It always was. All those people, left littered behind her. The hurt was the same, in the moment where they knew.

"You knew, didn't you," Pepper accused. Softly. No real edge. Just the soft bleed of pain. "That he was dying. You knew."

Natasha shrugged one shoulder. Just a twitch, a small deflection. "Suspected," she corrected. Gently. She did try. "The extent of his behaviour shift. We suspected. We had to be sure."

Pepper's chin came up. Blinking rapidly, swallowing. Her chin came up. "You knew," she repeated, softly. Almost to herself. "You knew."

And underneath that, _I didn't. You knew, and I didn't._

Natasha, feeling something hard and cold in her chest, reached out, very gently, and touched her shoulder. Pepper, for all the raw pain in her eyes, didn't flinch away.

"It's what I am," Natasha told her, quietly. "What I do. I know things. I reach inside people's lives, and I find things."

Pepper's smile twisted into a sneer, a flash of anger under the pain, an outlet for the self-recrimination inside. Turning it to anger, turning it outward. "And then you bring them back?" she asked, a hard flash of temper, clipped and bitten. 

Natasha, blank as the glass beside her, only smiled. Not a happy one.

"Sometimes," she said, smooth as a windowpane, and just as hard. "Sometimes, I kill them, instead."

It slapped Pepper back. Knocked her back, a half-step, anger disappearing behind something wide and startled. A sudden, panicked review, the extent of the danger, the extent of the betrayal, hitting home. Knowledge, sudden and searing. Pepper sucked in a breath. Bit her lip, staring wide-eyed and pained at Natasha.

There. Just there. The look that had been in Stark's eyes. The knowledge. Not fully. Not lived through. But ... enough. Enough to maybe understand.

And then, behind the knowledge, behind the fear, something Natasha had never seen in Stark's eyes. Something she had only ever seen twice. Once, many, many years ago, in the eyes of a man she'd killed. And once, years later, in the eyes of the man who'd saved her.

A breathless, liquid pity. Sudden, complete, and depthlessly sincere.

This time, it was Natasha who looked away. It was Natasha who found herself watching distant lights beyond blank glass, and raising her chin against the weight in her throat.

And this time, it was Pepper who raised a hand, tentative, hovering uselessly in the air for a second, and brought it to rest, so very gently, on Natasha's shoulder.

It was as warm, on that shoulder, as the glass was cold on the other.

"... Thank you," Pepper said, quietly. Into the dark silence, and the lights beyond the glass. "For ... for everything you did." A small, crinkled smile, caught in the corner of Natasha's eye, so very sad. "For everything you _didn't_ do." She bit her lip, her hand heavy on Natasha's shoulder. "Thank you. Natasha."

Natasha shook her head. Smoothed her face, blank as glass, and shook her head softly. She had no reason to be here. She'd had ... no reason to come.

Except ... maybe one.

"You did know," she said, turning to look back at the other woman. "Not the specifics. But you knew." She smiled, sad and true herself. "Next time, you'll know more clearly. Next time, you'll know in time."

Pepper blinked, desperately. Her lips pressing together. The knowledge, Natasha thought, as heavy in her chest as in Natasha's. "Next time?" she asked. And yes. She knew. She did know. Now.

Natasha reached up, gently, and took the woman's hand off her shoulder. Pausing, for only the tiniest second, to grip it, once, gently. 

"Next time," she confirmed, with a gentleness that she knew had killed, more than once, and a depthless pity in her eyes. "For people like us ... there will always be a next time."

People like her, and Stark. The knowledge. The fear born from experience, as he looked at her. The gut-torn betrayal, the resignation, and the knowledge.

For people like them, there was always a next time.

What there wasn't, not always ... was the pity she saw, the courage, the knowledge and the readiness, in the eyes of the woman before her. In the eyes ... of the man at the other end of the arrow. The eyes that pulled them out, that showed them why. That gave them a reason, to be ready to be afraid again. That gave them a reason, to be willing to be hurt again, and draw themselves free on the other side of it.

So many times, that wasn't there. And then, sometimes ... it was.

Pepper looked at her. Fear in the trembling line of her lips, in the raggedness of her breathing and the shine of her eyes. Pepper looked at her, head on, and then ... Then her chin rose. Her lips firmed. Her hand, trembling faintly in Natasha's, gripped tight in return, for just one second.

"Next time, I'll know," Pepper agreed, softly. A promise, an oath, on the ragged edge of desperation, and of courage. "Next time."

And for that, reflected in the glass as she left, painted softly over Pepper's face in the light from the door, Natasha's smile was ... if not happy, then at least firmer, and with a touch of something not too far from hope.


End file.
